(more) Top favorite reads of 2013

LitReactor just posted an end-of-the-year roundup, for which I provided my top five favorite books that were released in 2013. Narrowing it down to five was tough. I did my best. Here’s the list I gave them:

Blue Blazes by Check Wendig. Irish sandhogs as New York City’s last line of defense against a Lovecraftian hell PLUS kick-ass roller derby girls. How could I not love this book?

The Little Boy Inside and Other Stories by Glenn Gray. I have a bad habit with short story collections—I read a few stories, put the book down, and then don’t pick it up again for months. This one I went straight through. Between the body-building horror stories and medical horror stories I was squirming from start to finish.

The Big Reap by Chris F. Holm. Hardboiled soul collector caught in a conflict between heaven and hell. Love it. This is the third installment of a series and while the first two are really good, Holm steps up his game on this one.

Dead Calm by Charles Williams. I love Charles Williams so much. I feel lucky to publish his backlist. I read half of his books this year but Dead Calm was my favorite, for a few reasons, but mostly for this stunning passage:

He still hadn’t looked up, and she had no intention of venturing farther into his territory until he’d seen her and she could assess his reaction. From here she could still make it back to safety before he could get out from behind the wheel and catch her, but going too far would be like misjudging the length of chain by which some dangerous wild animal was secured. She waited, thinking of this and conscious of the incongruity or even the utter madness of the simile. Dangerous? This nice, well-mannered, unbelievably handsome boy who might have stepped right out of a mother’s dream? That was the horror of it, she thought. Conscious evil or malicious intent you could at least communicate with, but Warriner was capable of destroying her with the pointlessness and the perfect innocence of a falling safe, and with its same imperviousness to argument.

Rob Hart is the author of New Yorked, City of Rose, South Village, and The Woman from Prague. He is also the co-author of the upcoming novella Scott Free with James Patterson. His short stories and non-fiction articles have been published widely. Click here to learn more.